@mr ball
I agree now you've put it like that (btw i love that way you back your points up :)

@starcraft

when you put it like that, if the 360 come out at (850$au) i doubt half my friends would have got it. MS did make the right move here

 Come off it, Lets say people were trying to choose between Ps3 (for blu ray) and 360(hd dvd), then this happen think about it.

I think i read a thread somewhere. Where people said they only bought it for a blu ray player then, bought a game or 2, not sure where it is

Customers have choice. Nothing was 'forced' onto the consumer.

Sony opted to include a Blu-ray player into their console. The consumer then had the choice of paying for the console or not. Sony didn't hold a gun to anyones head, and 'force' them to purchase it. That's like saying Toyota forces it's Avensis owners to have on board computers in their car, just because it's included with their Avensis series.

Microsoft are associated with the loss of HD-DVD. They definetly do not look like a genius for associating with a format that is now dead.

If anything Sony now look like the genius, because they choose to include the winning HD format in their console, and it could potentially make a huge difference in sales for the long term.

Why would X360 sales decrease? Well if PS3 sales increase because of Blu-ray's victory, that could mean potential 360 customers shopping elsewhere.

"HD-DVD throws towel in the ring, X360 being outsold Ww by PS3..."

Correction, 360 being outsold by PS3 EVERYWHERE.

Doesn't world-wide really mean 'everywhere'?

Perhaps you were just trying to drill home the point though. :)

Oh crap...

*Puts ear to ground*

THEY'RE COMING!

Oh no, they're here!

@Dallinor

Not neccessarily, as the 360 was outselling the PS3 in NA for all of January, according to ioi, but PS3 had EU and JP which had the 360 outsold total WW.

@starcraft
"A $200 drop in base price, versus a $20 drop in base price (in reality it was two $100 price drops versus one $50 price drop but Sony fans don't like that so its been reworded for their ease of understanding). If its going to take that for Sony to compete I think it's clear they wont be able to keep it up."

Technically the base price was $500, and now the base is $400, so that's not $200. Secondly, the 40GB is not a price cut, it's a new SKU. By your logic, I could technically say that M$ spiked the price of the 360 because they introduced the Elite. And then to get even more technical:

Nov '06 PS3 - $500/$600
Present PS3 - $400/$500

New model =/= price adjustment, whether it be up or down

1/ just a news Xbox360 price drop will put the Xbox360 in a good position even if we dont know how long the price drop effect will stay.

2/ starcraft, the price drop is about 4 month old, so the effect have disappeared. Same for Halo3 release on the Xbox360.

3/ IF MS would have put a HD DVD on the Xbox360 then the Xbox360 would have sold less but, perhaps, the BR would be dead and the PS3 too ...

Actually this was gone over in another thread.  Aside from the fact that the 20gb was available in such limited supply it could be called rare, there was a period in which the 20gb had officially been dropped, but the 60gb hadn't had a price cut.  Therefore, there was a time when the base price was $600.  Lol, you could argue the PS3 briefly got a price INCREASE.